Category: Academic Dishonesty

In the article, “College Cheating Thirty Years Later: The Role of Academic Entitlement,” the purpose of the study conducted was to help increase the understanding of what the predictors of academic dishonesty are in today’s college students. Using four decades’ worth of date collected through the same questionnaire each time the author’s set out to find the role of academic dishonesty in millennial students who “possess generational characteristics likely to promote college cheating” (Stiles, Wong, and LaBeff 2018: 823). The authors want to determine what role academic entitlement plays in cheating in college because previous studies have tended to focus more on the factor of neutralization. Academic entitlement is “the perception that one is entitled to higher grades than earned, regardless of one’s ability or how much one studies or prepared for an exam or course requirement” (Stiles et al. 2018: 825). While controlling other variables, the authors intend to test the role that academic entitlement plays in college cheating. The thesis of this article is that a sense of academic entitlement in college students is what leads to cheating in college. The thesis in this paper was clearly stated. The information in the article is important for sociology students and professionals alike because cheating in college affects every university nationwide.

The sample consisted of roughly ten percent of the students at a public university. The majority of individuals who participated were traditional-aged college students. The sample had mainly first / second year students with the majority of participants being Caucasian females (Stiles et al. 2018: 825). There were other races and college levels represented in this sample, but the percentages for these other groups were significantly low compared to Caucasian freshmen. While this is a good sample size, the problem lies within the distribution of the sample. The sample was rather diverse, but the high rates of Caucasian freshmen will make the sample more generalizable to Caucasian freshmen rather than the campus as a whole. A sample with regards to all categories would have helped in the data analysis.

The method to collect data on cheating behavior and attitudes were collected through an online survey on academic dishonesty (modified) that was developed by Haines et al. (1986 as cited by Stiles et al. 2018: 826). This particular survey has been used in many investigations on college cheating. Introductory history, psychology, and sociology classes that were in the university’s core curriculum were sampled, including some online classes. The author’s said that this would mean that participants were expected to be “fairly representative of the campus” (Stiles et al. 2018: 826). Although some could argue that interviews would have been a better method for obtaining information about cheating in college. Whereas lying online is extremely easy, lying to somebody’s face is more challenging and more accurate results could have been obtained. A survey was the correct choice for the study to have such a large sample size and to obtain the information that they did obtain, but to try and alleviate the ability to lie so easily an interview may have been more beneficial if the sample size would have permitted for that possibility.

The authors provide evidence that supports the hypothesis that a sense of academic entitlement in students is what leads to cheating in college. The article provides a table (Table 1) of the results of the OLS Regression in which college cheating is predicted based on Academic Entitlement and the Control variables (Stiles et al. 2018: 828). The control variables are neutralization and the fact that college students tend to say what they think will make them look the most-favorable in a situation which was tested by the Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Stiles et al. 2018: 827). This table shows that academic entitlement in significant in predicting college cheating. This table’s a strong support of the hypothesis because it shows the relationship. Even though academic entitlement is a significant predictor of college cheating, the authors’ results show that neutralization is also significant as well. The author’s show some evidence of how a sense of academic entitlement in students is what leads to cheating in college, but there were also numerous mentions of other variables and how they played a role in college cheating as well. (Stiles et al. 2018: 828). For example, the other variables that play a role in college cheating are neutralization, gender, participation in sororities / varsity sports, etc.

There are many individuals who will benefit from reading this article. Professors and teachers would be some of the top individuals who would benefit from reading this article. Knowing why students cheat is important to help prevent it in their own classrooms so teachers would benefit from learning some of the predictors of academic dishonesty (college cheating). The benefit to these teachers and professors is important because it can help in the understanding of why students act in the way they do when it comes to completing assigned coursework of any kind. College students may benefit from this as well. This was an eye opening article for me personally and I believe that many college students would benefit from reading this article. Actually seeing how real college students view cheating helps you understand your peers all the better.

This is an informative piece that reflects on four decades’ worth of students at a single university and their cheating habits. It helps show the significance that academic entitlement plays in college cheating, while previous research has focused mainly on the aspect of neutralization. If this study were to be repeated I feel like interviews would be beneficial to the overall results of the study. I also think that the sample should be more diverse and a majority of the sample should not be Caucasian freshmen. There should be a larger amount of participants who are sophomore, junior, or seniors. Having more individuals who are African American, Hispanic, Caribbean, Native American and Asian would provide a more diverse sample. This study has shown to have beneficial information about academic entitlement and the role that it plays in college cheating.

Shattered Glass is a movie that follows the work life of Stephen Glass, a journalist at the New Republic. Stephen is an established and successful writer who has written for multiple papers and magazines. The movie starts off with Stephens first mistake, this was giving false evidence to a story he was writing. The hotel in his story called him out claiming that his story and the policies that the manager follows don’t add up. The manager calls the New Republic claiming that Stephen is lying. After this first encounter the main plot of Shattered Glass begins. Stephens most successful story is a story about how at a computer convention, a computer company was tired of this hacker breaking their products so to make him stop they decided that it would be better to hire him and pay him off. When Stephen told this story to his editors, they were mesmerized by Stephens ability to story tell. They immediately decided to put it in the newspaper. Once out a technology magazine was infuriated that they didn’t hear the story first and that none of their journalist were at this convention, therefore they send Adam Penenberg to investigate this story. Once Adam starts investigating, he finds that none of the story’s points add up. He calls the New Republic asking where they heard of this story and investigates the story himself. He then continued to call out Stephen saying his entire story is a lie involving in his termination.

When it comes to plagiarism, those involved would say it’s not a victimless crime and those who commit plagiarism say it can be nothing more than a harmless lie. In school we hear many stories about people that were victims to plagiarism. It all seems hard to believe when we first hear about the consequences. Most of the time we believe it’s a scary story told to scare young students into doing the right thing. I believe this is partly true, but I also believe that there are many victims to plagiarism. Plagiarism does not only fall under copying someone else’s work but also taking someone else’s idea and using it as you own. There are many real-life events that involve the victims of plagiarism that the world will never know about. A good example is how the creators of the Netflix show Stranger things are being called to court because they are being accused of plagiarizing the entire idea of the show. It is saying the three people came up with the idea: Matt and Ross Duffer along with Charlie Kessler. According to Seth Mcdonald from LRMonline, the Duffer brothers met Kessler at Tribeca Film Festival in 2014 where they chatted, and Kessler told him about his new idea he’s been thinking about. The Duffer brothers proceed to make a lot of money from Kessler idea. If what Kessler says is true, then he in fact was a true victim to the Duffer brother’s crime of taking his idea and using it as their own.

The similarities between Shattered Glass and my incident of Academic dishonesty are that we both did the wrong thing when we knew what was right and what was wrong. We both have had prior training and notice of the consequences. I do see many differences in our both cases though. As I said earlier, I know plagiarism is not a victimless crime, but I do believe it to be by situation or case by case. In this case and in the case of Shattered Glass I believe the victims to be those who put their trust in their subordinates. Chuck trusted Stephen and didn’t want to believe the accusations that were being told, but it is his job to make sure his newspapers fact and stories are factual. In my case my instructor, professor Kamryn Williams, trusted us as his students to uphold the policies that we all learned since elementary school. I do believe him to be the only victim in this case because not knowing if you can trust those who say you can trust them is something no one wants to deal with. Many instructors feel that their teaching is ridiculed or looked down upon if their students need to resort to cheating. I’ve had the privilege to have professor Williams as a teacher last semester in MATH 307: Intro to Differential Equations. In this class and all classes before I had no incidents regarding academic dishonesty and I deeply respected professor William and his way and style of teaching. I feel as though he has been let down and heavily disappointed in us as his students.

Another similarity to Shattered Glass is how we both believed we gotten away with something we knew was wrong and came up with contingency plans incase caught. Stephen knew he was wrong but when questioned he dug deeper into his lie and came up with false companies and fake websites. His lying could only go so far because once they started asking the hotel in which the convention was supposedly held everything fell apart. Likewise, I and the other student involved both thought that we got away with it and were already putting it behind us. Like Stephen, when we were caught my first instinct was to lie and deny what was being accused of me, but unlike Stephen I thought about how far can this lie go? How long can I hold it? The more I lie, the deeper I dig the more trouble I could get into. We quickly decided it would be wise to just tell the truth and accept whatever punishment was to be given to us because we knew that we deserved it. The other student did the right thing and scheduled his meeting as soon as he knew what to do. I on the other hand screwed up even more and took a long time to schedule my meeting. This action will look wrong to others in the future just like Stephens mistakes will carry over to him when he goes to study law as a lawyer.

If I were to be put in the same situation again, I would not do the same thing again. In this case I decided to let my other classes take priority because I felt that cheating was manageable and if we did it once it wouldn’t be too bad. We had all our exams prior to the MATH 244: Calculus 4 exam which we cheated on. As I stated before I got sloppy with my studying and did not focus very hard on my Calculus 4 exam leading me to making the wrong decision of allowing someone else to look at my paper. I know now that academic dishonesty not only affects those involved but those around as well. My actions, my cheating affects those around me by changing the grades of my test and the test of the other student resulting in higher scores than we deserve. These higher scores will affect the overall class curve. When the class curve is skewed higher than it is supposed to be those students who were hoping for a better curve will not get it because too many scores were high. Same for the students who worked hard to study for this exam. For those students who took their limited time to study for all their exams, who managed their time wisely, who sacrificed social interactions and online fun for this exam. They all are deserving of the curve that would have been assigned but wasn’t because our grades skewed it too high.

I know I would not do it again because a couple days ago I had my second exam in MATH 244: calculus 4 and the other student and I didn’t cheat or copy off each other on this exam. When we did this our instructor, professor Williams, decided that the class average was too low and allowed us to do a makeup exam as corrections and get up to seventy percent of our lost points back. This will allow those who are borderline passing to push themselves to that passing grade. It will also allow those who made stupid mistakes that they didn’t notice before get the points that they deserve. Maybe if the other student and I didn’t cheat on the last exam professor William might have let us do the same thing for the last exam. Our cheating might have let all the other students miss out on an opportunity to get lost points back. These are the ways my actions affect those around me and why I would not partake in academic dishonesty in another MATH 244 exam or any other academic work throughout my academic career. I hope others will learn from this and not make the same mistakes the other student and I made.

Regarding academic dishonesty I would tell other students to try their absolute best to stay as far away from it as possible. It can only cause you problems in the future and the payoff is not as good as many make you believe. Many students think that cheating is the easy way through school and that if you can do it right, you won’t have to study ever again. I would tell the students who think that, that they’re wrong. Cheating makes your life and those around you much more difficult. After you cheated it will be on your mind for a long time, gnawing at your brain stressing you out, always thinking that the instructor is on to you. It makes your life harder than it would be if you took the time out of your day and studied for your exam. Also, to cheat correctly you would still need to study to make sure your work looks authentic and your own, to know what it is your copying so that you won’t copy down something that doesn’t make any sense and give away that you are cheating. In the end it would require more work, more stress, and more risk to cheat. It’s easier to hunker down and study, know what’s on your exam, test yourself constantly so your brain is used to searching for answers within its memory.

Some other advice I would give to students regarding academic dishonesty is really weigh out the pros and the cons of his or her actions. Consider the worse possible possibility, expect the worse. If he or she commits academic dishonesty expecting to be caught they would receive a consequence they were prepared for. A student that thinks that his or her actions will get by unnoticed and unscathed will be more inclined to lie and deny their actions resulting in a punishment worse than intended. These are just my thoughts and I have no evidence to back it up but that’s why it’s just considered my advice. Continuing off expecting the worse from your actions, once this student weighs out the pros and cons of academic dishonesty, they will find that there are more pros than cons, but those small cons have big repercussion and consequences that need to be dealt with.

In conclusion, like Stephen Glass in Shattered Glass, I committed an unethical course of actions that ended up with consequences that may cause me more problems down the line when looking for career jobs. Many say that plagiarism is a victimless crime but just like in Shattered Glass every crime has its victims. In Stephens case it was his coworkers and company that suffered through his actions. In this case it was my instructor and fellow students. I learned many things through this experience like the potential consequences and extra stress that cheating, copying or any other form of academic dishonesty brings with it. I would advise all students who think about doing this, not to. Only problems will arise from this course of actions. To those who already commit academic dishonesty and think they are getting away with it. Your luck will dry out, Study hard. Earn your grades, makes the grade and celebration much better.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines plagiarism as “the practice of taking someone else’s ideas or work and pretending that it is your own” (Cambridge Online Dictionary, 2022). The word derives from the Latin ‘plagiarius’ meaning ‘kidnapping’. To further clarify plagiarism, Diane Pecorari (2015) attests that there are three main forms: ‘textual’, which describes the use of words/ideas without correct attribution, ‘prototypical’, describing unattributed words/ideas of another without appropriate attribution and with the intention to deceive, and ‘patchworking’, which is defined as unattributed works/ideas included in one’s own but without the intention to deceive.

Plagiarism applies to instances of both intended and unintended deceit. I recognize that it also applies to both published and non-published work, electronic and printed material. Examples of plagiarism within higher education include failure to cite or incorrect citing of another’s work, misciting sources, and rephrasing another’s wording without the correct citation.

In terms of current research, studies have found that unintended plagiarism can arise due to the increasing ease of access to a breadth of digitally available information. This is a key consideration and requires discipline as, regardless of intention, plagiarism is highly unethical and warrants serious consequences for any student. Foremost of these is the failure to secure the qualification.

I note with interest the ongoing conversation exploring cultural perceptions of plagiarism, primarily, and potentially, a more lenient view within traditionally collectivist cultures such as China, compared to traditional Western ones (Kasler, J. et al., 2020). The findings from this report recognize, also, environmental and cultural pressures acting upon students, including the value, or not, of self-expression versus a performance mindset that may be focused on achievement at any cost.

As interesting as it is, I am to be concerned only with what plagiarism represents for me as I engage with my studies. As a master’s student, plagiarism is to be steadfastly avoided. Beyond the predominantly accepted view that plagiarism is theft and disavows the victim of the credit deserved, this act would be symbolic of a failure to engage accordingly with the demands of this level of study.

I agree with the sentiment voiced by Graff and Birkenstein (2018), which is that students should approach study with the intention of joining the academic conversation, exploring ideas, and examining the arguments that are alive within the discourse before earning the right to add their original voice.

Remaining motivated to approach studies ethically, valuing learning at least equally as achievement, and engaging with robust research and correct referencing is critical. It has been proven that students with lower levels of motivation are more likely to plagiarize, intentionally or unintentionally, when faced with challenges such as time and reduced self-esteem.

Plagiarism demonstrates a lack of skill, diligence, or ethics. Sometimes it demonstrates all three. It negates one’s right to enter the academic conversation credibly and prevents one from successfully achieving the given qualification.

Doing honest work in college plays a very important role in a student’s life and it is what the academic integrity is built upon. The book ‘Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success’, by Charles Lipson focuses on Academic honesty and how students can make sure that they maintain it all times. Academic honesty is applied to all the work we do and submit in the college, violation of which could be done in many forms such as plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, unauthorized collaboration etc. Sometimes the violations can be unintentional due to lack of proper knowledge and sometimes they can be deliberate. This book helps the students in efficiently understanding the principles of academic honesty and ways to uphold it.

In this book Charles Lipson discusses the three basic principles of academic honesty that need to be followed in all classes, papers, reports etc. The most beneficial thing about this book is that the writer has pointed out most of the mistakes that a student could make and how to avoid them by using simple tips such as using “Q” for quotation marks to differentiate between our own text and the copied text and ideas. Every aspect of the college work from classes to exams is explained in detail along with how to do it right in a very simplest manner. The importance proper citations and references have been clearly explained along with how to cite properly in different styles.

Reading this book helped me understand the difference between adding in-text citations wherever necessary and adding references, how lack of proper citations might mislead the readers even though the references are mentioned at the end of the work. I have learned the importance of citations and how to cite properly using APA style for different sources of information like books, articles, online research etc. It helped me identify the mistake that I have made in my previous paper i.e. failing to cite the work of others that I have used properly along with several other ways of academic dishonesty that might be committed by the students out of ignorance and how to avoid them.

The book emphasizes on honest work which is vital not only in college but also in day to day life. Academic integrity is a step by step process which begins from the classroom and slowly gets inculcated into everyday life. This book helps readers understand where to start and how to do it. The author helped me understand how to uphold the principles of academic integrity which is useful not only in the college but also in my future outside the college.

Academic integrity is the ethical code or honor code that is followed by the university to avoid dishonest activities such as cheating, plagiarism etc in order to maintain academic standards. It is not limited to students but is applied across the university for everyone including professors and staff. It helps in improving the trust and honesty of the students by properly crediting the sources wherever due. It facilitates in building honest practices, improving the knowledge and efficiency of the students towards making contributions to the community.

With the increasing technology, internet has become an integral source of information. It is a fastest source that provides precise results with targeted searches. But at the same time it also increases the scope for cheating and plagiarism. In this book the author has outlined some important points that need to be kept in mind while using internet for doing our research along with some simple tips that could help us in avoiding cheating or plagiarism unintentionally.

The first thing to remember is that the quality of information on internet varies widely, so it is important to cross-check and make sure that the information is reliable. Second thing is that internet can give us exact results with targeted searches but then we might miss information that is very important or related to the topic. Third, it is very easy to drag and drop information from internet while taking notes but later on we might not be able to differentiate between what is from internet and what is our original work which might lead to plagiarism. Also when we copy and paste information into our work repeatedly we might forget to properly cite them, once again leading to plagiarism.

In order to handle these problems the author has mentioned a few tips:

• Screen the sources of information and make sure whether it is reliable or not.
• Search for additional text and information based on the scope of our research.
• Don’t copy and paste too much information from the web into the notes and make sure that the information copied is highlighted or differentiated from our original work in order to cite it properly. The tip that the author have mentioned is to put letter Q at the beginning and end of any copied information in order to differentiate it from the own work.

It is very important to make sure that we have figured out our priorities while doing any work, whether it’s in or outside the college. At the same time priorities also change according to the situation. For example as a freshman, a student’s first priority would be academics, whereas in the final year the first priority would be networking and getting a job. So, I do not have a pre-determined list of priorities but whatever my priority is, I always believe that it is necessary to make sure that I put in my best efforts and be honest at all times. Being a college student academics play a vital role and it is always one of my top most priorities. But then the most important thing for me than academics is learning.

I do believe that the actions and choices that we make in college affect our future. It begins with choosing right college, right major, right courses etc., which will reflect in our everyday life at college. Following proper rules and honor codes in college will help in inculcating honest practices and appropriate behavior in our day to day life which yields results even after college. Everything from the courses we choose to the actions we take when faced with a problem teaches us something and shapes who we are and what we want to be.

One thing that I have been taught by my parents since childhood is that discipline is more important than education. Studying can get us a degree but only when combined with discipline and proper behavior we can put it to good use. After this incident I have realized that there is a lot for me to learn about the American education system, which varies widely in comparison to my previous education system. So, I have been taking time out of my schedule to learn about it and align my behavior and thoughts according it. Because every system has different perspectives and it is important to understand those. Eventually in the end the goal of every education system is to teach, it’s just the way they do it is different.

Time management plays an important role in every student’s life. Beginning with the classes to assignments and other activities, sometimes managing time efficiently can be most challenging thing which might also make students in distressing situations to engage in some dishonest activities like cheating and plagiarism to secure marks. To mange my time better I’m plan ahead and start working on the assignments and projects from the first day rather than rushing on the deadline. Preparing a schedule and making notes on what need to be done to avoid forgetting things. Assign time for each work prior, rather than figuring out which one to do first at the end.

Finally yes, I would definitely recommend making the students read this book for similar violations as it will give insights on what are citations and how to cite properly. But also at the same time I feel there is more to academic integrity other than plagiarism and cheating. This book helps in learning citations but it is also necessary for students to understand the system rather than the chunks of it, so they could know what is expected of them much more precisely.

Plagiarism is the use of exact words and ideas of other people or another author without giving proper acknowledgement to the owner. It is also defined as the use of another person’s works, ideas, theories, strategies, and interpretation without permission from the author or person. This act of dishonesty is a serious offense in school communities, that could possibly result to expulsion or suspension. It can be diverse in its extent based on its amount. Student commits plagiarism by just replacing the words with synonyms and changing some parts of the original document is a very common act (Klien, 2011).

Since the 1600s, plagiarism is identified as a problem. This unlawful act must be prevented and in line with moral virtues, values, and behave accordingly. Conferring to literature, to scrutinize the understanding and concept of plagiarism is to solve this problem.

There is also known as cyber plagiarism, it is a copy-paste act in the internet. Students are mostly engaged in this kind of act and was reported plagiarizing as they copy-paste information from the internet. Therefore, acts such as; download, editing, and printing an article or book coming from a website and claiming an article as their original writing is morally wrong and can receive consequence (Kokkinaki et al.,2015).

The arise of electronic technology is the ins and outs of plagiarism. It has limitless knowledge that aims to provide the information to those researchers anytime-anywhere. It becomes ever-complicated because of the factors that result in plagiarism; such as students understanding of plagiarism, self-realization, ethics, and personal attitude, internet access, pressure, and learning environment (Smith et al., 2007).

According to Gillespie (2003) Sims published an article about the relationship between unethical business and academic dishonesty practices. It was published in the year 1993, were they found most of senior and college student did a consistent academic dishonesty due to the standards of teachers, professors and the institution. The cavalier ignorance towards academic dishonesty is of concern for most higher education since it creates big impact to the organization that needed to unravel and impart some excessive knowledge concerning the credibility of their alma mater.

Many researchers argue about the uncertainty on what is supposed to do in academic dishonesty among learners (Ashworth et al., 1997). Learners claimed that they cannot consider to be dishonesty or cheating to what the teacher/professors tells them to do. An area of uncertainty might include them to have peer collaboration and eloquent to what is extent the collaboration considered to be inappropriate (Weiss & Bader, 2003). Lathrop & Foss (2003) agreed that there is a fundamental conflict between the teacher/professors to allocate collaboration work to their learners. Williams (2001) also stated that there might be point of crossing line on cheating that may differ by each teacher/professor.

According to McCabe & Trevino (1993, 1997, 2002) plagiarism and cheating is becoming a campus norm due to the lack of honor code and adequate consequences in this is one of the reasons why plagiarism wide spreading in campuses. They also suggest that having academic honor codes can reduce plagiarism and cheating and might be ended this kind of norm. Some students may engage in plagiarism practices particularly in school works, due to the easier access in the internet and more suitable answer they want (Garcia 2009). Students who either intentionally or unintentionally submit unoriginal work as their own, are hindering their ability to extract meaning from the information they read (Abdolmohammadi & Baker, 2007) are limiting their opportunity to develop higher level cognitive learning skills.

Plagiarism has been a problem in higher education institutions all throughout the globe. These practices are common issue that reported by numerous students Roman (2018). However, plagiarism today is now easily detected, there is a software that detects whether an essay is plagiarized and was performed with the Joint Information System Committee at University of Bedfordshire. Its gives benefit to the writes and authors to honor and preserve their works Bull, Collins, Coughlin, and Sharp (2001).

Reyes et al. (Sci Ed. 2015), that several universities and campuses across the Philippines, had plagiarism cases in the same way as University of the Philippines Diliman, the Organization’s largest and reputable university in the state found out to has numerous students plagiarize in the University. However, despite the verifiable cases of plagiarism in the university and its academic organization strict the rule on confidentiality in cases involving research malpractice. The Chancellor have the authority to examine selected final and execute the student case files to obsolete Student Disciplinary Tribunal. Reyes et al. (Sci Ed. 2015) also stated that currently, there are no national guidelines on dealing with plagiarism for academic publishers in the Philippines, or even for the University of the Philippines. Besides, plagiarism in the Philippines is still largely understudied. Existent work generally focuses on plagiarism by students, tackling educational interventions, or plagiarism in relation to legal issues.

Moreover, students or even others should learn how to express their own ideas and make it a challenge for themselves, and doing it with a foreign language makes the situation more difficult because of some reasons, for instance, language vocabulary limitation and the grammar if it is compared to the person’s mother tongue. Many international students borrow the words of native authors through lack of confidence in their own abilities to write correct, clear English. It is big challenge to every person who are not into English (Carroll, 2007).

Smith et al., (2007) said that plagiarism becomes increasingly problematic because of the factors that results to it; such as students understanding of plagiarism, self-realization, ethics and personal attitude, internet access, pressure and learning environment. Plagiarism gets more attention among the academic dishonesty, most of the professors, scholars and researchers (Shenton 2012). It can be described as the greatest challenges that a school or university is facing. Since plagiarism remains as a well-known problem in the academe, University teachers tended to overestimate their frequency (Hard et al., 2006). Students also perceive that plagiarism occurs more often than it does, greater extent than faculty, and generally attribute the high rate to strangers than the people they know (Engler et al., 2008). Rettinger and Kramer (2009) states that one reason that can distort students understanding of the required strategies that they should use to complete assignments is those unidentified group of students, who attended school regularly and submit, plagiarized works.

Reasons for Plagiarism, Dishonest and Its Disadvantage

In the academic aspect plagiarism, dishonesty or cheating is not new but it is a phenomenon issue where mostly students are the host. The student’s way to cheat is via internet access by the usage of modern technology like cellphones, computers, laptops, iPad and etc.

According to Ma et al (2007) the reasons why students/learners commit plagiarism or academic cheating for the reason of peer culture, the offers of the website, pressure for aiming high academic grade and parents’ high expectations. Mcdowell and Brown (2001) added that the higher education’s standard is one of the reasons why students cheat to meet its objectives. Furthermore, the changes of the form of assessments such as projects, performance tasks, assignment and etc., affects the communication of both learner and educator that is why stealing information thru technology is the easiest way to do it. A dilemma that focuses only on maintain and targeting high grades to pass academic standards. In addition, internet is the easiest and simplest way for assignment completion which strongly related to plagiarism.

Eccles et al (2006) also stated that the student’s tendency to plagiarize is due to the lack of English knowledge and language on how to use it properly. Therefore, naturally born in English language has the advantage not to take plagiarism while unnaturally born in English language has the tendency to commit plagiarism. Student who had hard time because of heavy workloads to do may be pressured and do dishonest things. Moreover, lack of information skills of a student is a must concern to avoid cheating (Morey 2011).

Most of the reason to commit such academic dishonesty is the laziness and the poor or lack of understanding of citation rules and does not have time management, also the laziness of paraphrasing the text (Wilkinson, 2009). The internet has been blamed because of increasing the plagiarism practices that is happening these days and it is witnessed by the recent years. Internet also is a major and omnipresent at higher level institutions of learning (Selwyn, 2008).

Smit (2012) the disadvantage of plagiarism could be affecting the future career of a student(s)/person(s) whom only rely on stealing someone’s work. It keeps the laziness inside and always depend on ready-made works.

Academic Consequences

A student(s) caught on plagiarizing will face consequences which failure on academics, suspension and dismissal. The teachers, faculty and school will be the ones to do consequences (Judicial Board Advisor 2020). Shabe (2018) also added that consequences on plagiarism is depend on the institution of what type of rules they will get but in common in specified above failing grades, disciplinary action, suspension and etc. Avoiding plagiarism can save future career essentially students should properly cite sources, get permission to someone else’s work.

Belter et al., (2009) agreed to it and distinguish plagiarism as an intentional and unintentional. From the perspective of unintentional it is where a student who is just starting on learning how to write and do things must be informed and must understand how to avoid plagiarism and the consequences of plagiarism as the purpose of this study to avoid conflict regarding same thoughts and ideas. On the other hand, Intentional plagiarism is purposely presenting someone’s idea or work as its own without giving proper credits to the author. The most common act of intentional plagiarism is cheating in exams, doing an essay, copying someone’s work (Atrak, H., 2018). This will be permanently recorded and have a long-term consequence in the career of a person(s)/student(s) after proven doing plagiarism.

Capes (2011) also stated, to raise awareness about plagiarism in text documents, thesis paper, articles and so on to academic community. But since, some academic organization consider plagiarism not a consequential act, the students’ dishonesty such as cheating, lack of the owners’ acknowledgment, copying without citations and other written document will still on going for they have not experience a total and tangible consequences to their unrighteous act. As well, plagiarism can weaken the ability of the student(s)/learner(s) to attain skills required for higher education that could to be ignorant and harm themselves Conger, Loch 1996).

Plagiarism can bring monetary retribution and penalties for they offend the original writer and penalized to compensate for it. Moreover, Department of Justice (DOJ) conferring that plagiarism is not a crime itself but in sum up to copyright infringement carries a penalty of 3-6 years imprisonment and a fine of ₱50,000.00 – ₱150,000.00 if prosecuted under the law, it is legally based Under the law of Philippines Cybercrime Prevention Act or the Republic Act 10175, (Bailey, 2012).

According to Cole (2007) there still consequences to those graduate students who silently plagiarize where it attacks their personal integrity and lack of professionalism. In this situation their career might fall down and be criticize by other professionals.

Generally, the mentioned consequences can be destructive will greatly affect the violators life. By that students should learn on how to acquire and be independent to seek knowledge regarding English language.

Academic plagiarism is to sign or present as your own something composed by someone else. It is duplicating other people’s work. Plagiarism or literary theft is a fraudulent imitation of a work, ensured by copyright law, and there is a genuine infringement of the writer’s moral rights: both the paternity and the integrity of his creation. There are different ways to commit plagiarism. Among the most repeated practices, the following can be distinguished: integral plagiarism (duplicating, in precisely the same words, without making changes, work, or passage of it and not presenting the authentic source), paraphrasing without assigning the source, research data – quantitative and qualitative – without mentioning the source, mosaic plagiarism (coping excerpts from different sources, forming a mosaic, but changing small sentences or words to disguise the copy), self-plagiarism (it happens when someone borrows their content, which has already been used in previous situations), or copying images, photos, graphics, drawings, and other visual content.

As for me, I believe that plagiarism is bad, primarily from the point of view of ethics. Plagiarism should be unacceptable and avoided at all costs, if you are caught plagiarizing this will question your character and integrity. People will question all aspects of your work academically. Plagiarism is stealing in the simplest form. This has always been ethically wrong.

Ethical people attract other ethical people, forming a network of good around them. Therefore, to create a culture of ethics and integrity in our environment, the first step starts with us: be whole. According to La Boetie, a French philosopher and humanist, only ethical people have friends, evil people have complicities. Moreover, these complicities compete with people and covet their success. With this, it is interesting to think that being ethical is the best and easiest way to win, since by being ethical, instead of envy and pitfalls, people find the support of other individuals who cheer for their success. Academic integrity is a fundamental component of success and growth; it prepares students for personal and professional challenges, as well as providing a plan for future achievement and success.

We should always be careful about integrity and never leave anyone in doubt about how we stand on issues. Integrity, for me, is more than just legal issues. It is values that should guide us all the time. It is about always doing the right thing, not just the cool thing. Trusting your integrity and not disappointing others is the message that everyone in a professional environment should always follow. For this reason, I believe that plagiarism should never be acceptable in an academic environment, as it threatens our integrity and goes against moral and ethical standards.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines plagiarism as “the practice of taking someone else’s ideas or work and pretending that it is your own” (Cambridge Online Dictionary, 2022). The word derives from the Latin ‘plagiarius’ meaning ‘kidnapping’. To further clarify plagiarism, Diane Pecorari (2015) attests that there are three main forms: ‘textual’, which describes the use of words/ideas without correct attribution, ‘prototypical’, describing unattributed words/ideas of another without appropriate attribution and with the intention to deceive, and ‘patchworking’, which is defined as unattributed works/ideas included in one’s own but without the intention to deceive.

Plagiarism applies to instances of both intended and unintended deceit. I recognize that it also applies to both published and non-published work, electronic and printed material. Examples of plagiarism within higher education include failure to cite or incorrect citing of another’s work, misciting sources, and rephrasing another’s wording without the correct citation.

In terms of current research, studies have found that unintended plagiarism can arise due to the increasing ease of access to a breadth of digitally available information. This is a key consideration and requires discipline as, regardless of intention, plagiarism is highly unethical and warrants serious consequences for any student. Foremost of these is the failure to secure the qualification.

I note with interest the ongoing conversation exploring cultural perceptions of plagiarism, primarily, and potentially, a more lenient view within traditionally collectivist cultures such as China, compared to traditional Western ones (Kasler, J. et al., 2020). The findings from this report recognize, also, environmental and cultural pressures acting upon students, including the value, or not, of self-expression versus a performance mindset that may be focused on achievement at any cost.

As interesting as it is, I am to be concerned only with what plagiarism represents for me as I engage with my studies. As a master’s student, plagiarism is to be steadfastly avoided. Beyond the predominantly accepted view that plagiarism is theft and disavows the victim of the credit deserved, this act would be symbolic of a failure to engage accordingly with the demands of this level of study.

I agree with the sentiment voiced by Graff and Birkenstein (2018), which is that students should approach study with the intention of joining the academic conversation, exploring ideas, and examining the arguments that are alive within the discourse before earning the right to add their original voice.

Remaining motivated to approach studies ethically, valuing learning at least equally as achievement, and engaging with robust research and correct referencing is critical. It has been proven that students with lower levels of motivation are more likely to plagiarize, intentionally or unintentionally, when faced with challenges such as time and reduced self-esteem.

Plagiarism demonstrates a lack of skill, diligence, or ethics. Sometimes it demonstrates all three. It negates one’s right to enter the academic conversation credibly and prevents one from successfully achieving the given qualification.

Doing honest work in college plays a very important role in a student’s life and it is what the academic integrity is built upon. The book ‘Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success’, by Charles Lipson focuses on Academic honesty and how students can make sure that they maintain it all times. Academic honesty is applied to all the work we do and submit in the college, violation of which could be done in many forms such as plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, unauthorized collaboration etc. Sometimes the violations can be unintentional due to lack of proper knowledge and sometimes they can be deliberate. This book helps the students in efficiently understanding the principles of academic honesty and ways to uphold it.

In this book Charles Lipson discusses the three basic principles of academic honesty that need to be followed in all classes, papers, reports etc. The most beneficial thing about this book is that the writer has pointed out most of the mistakes that a student could make and how to avoid them by using simple tips such as using “Q” for quotation marks to differentiate between our own text and the copied text and ideas. Every aspect of the college work from classes to exams is explained in detail along with how to do it right in a very simplest manner. The importance proper citations and references have been clearly explained along with how to cite properly in different styles.

Reading this book helped me understand the difference between adding in-text citations wherever necessary and adding references, how lack of proper citations might mislead the readers even though the references are mentioned at the end of the work. I have learned the importance of citations and how to cite properly using APA style for different sources of information like books, articles, online research etc. It helped me identify the mistake that I have made in my previous paper i.e. failing to cite the work of others that I have used properly along with several other ways of academic dishonesty that might be committed by the students out of ignorance and how to avoid them.

The book emphasizes on honest work which is vital not only in college but also in day to day life. Academic integrity is a step by step process which begins from the classroom and slowly gets inculcated into everyday life. This book helps readers understand where to start and how to do it. The author helped me understand how to uphold the principles of academic integrity which is useful not only in the college but also in my future outside the college.

Academic integrity is the ethical code or honor code that is followed by the university to avoid dishonest activities such as cheating, plagiarism etc in order to maintain academic standards. It is not limited to students but is applied across the university for everyone including professors and staff. It helps in improving the trust and honesty of the students by properly crediting the sources wherever due. It facilitates in building honest practices, improving the knowledge and efficiency of the students towards making contributions to the community.

With the increasing technology, internet has become an integral source of information. It is a fastest source that provides precise results with targeted searches. But at the same time it also increases the scope for cheating and plagiarism. In this book the author has outlined some important points that need to be kept in mind while using internet for doing our research along with some simple tips that could help us in avoiding cheating or plagiarism unintentionally.

The first thing to remember is that the quality of information on internet varies widely, so it is important to cross-check and make sure that the information is reliable. Second thing is that internet can give us exact results with targeted searches but then we might miss information that is very important or related to the topic. Third, it is very easy to drag and drop information from internet while taking notes but later on we might not be able to differentiate between what is from internet and what is our original work which might lead to plagiarism. Also when we copy and paste information into our work repeatedly we might forget to properly cite them, once again leading to plagiarism.

In order to handle these problems the author has mentioned a few tips:

• Screen the sources of information and make sure whether it is reliable or not.
• Search for additional text and information based on the scope of our research.
• Don’t copy and paste too much information from the web into the notes and make sure that the information copied is highlighted or differentiated from our original work in order to cite it properly. The tip that the author have mentioned is to put letter Q at the beginning and end of any copied information in order to differentiate it from the own work.

It is very important to make sure that we have figured out our priorities while doing any work, whether it’s in or outside the college. At the same time priorities also change according to the situation. For example as a freshman, a student’s first priority would be academics, whereas in the final year the first priority would be networking and getting a job. So, I do not have a pre-determined list of priorities but whatever my priority is, I always believe that it is necessary to make sure that I put in my best efforts and be honest at all times. Being a college student academics play a vital role and it is always one of my top most priorities. But then the most important thing for me than academics is learning.

I do believe that the actions and choices that we make in college affect our future. It begins with choosing right college, right major, right courses etc., which will reflect in our everyday life at college. Following proper rules and honor codes in college will help in inculcating honest practices and appropriate behavior in our day to day life which yields results even after college. Everything from the courses we choose to the actions we take when faced with a problem teaches us something and shapes who we are and what we want to be.

One thing that I have been taught by my parents since childhood is that discipline is more important than education. Studying can get us a degree but only when combined with discipline and proper behavior we can put it to good use. After this incident I have realized that there is a lot for me to learn about the American education system, which varies widely in comparison to my previous education system. So, I have been taking time out of my schedule to learn about it and align my behavior and thoughts according it. Because every system has different perspectives and it is important to understand those. Eventually in the end the goal of every education system is to teach, it’s just the way they do it is different.

Time management plays an important role in every student’s life. Beginning with the classes to assignments and other activities, sometimes managing time efficiently can be most challenging thing which might also make students in distressing situations to engage in some dishonest activities like cheating and plagiarism to secure marks. To mange my time better I’m plan ahead and start working on the assignments and projects from the first day rather than rushing on the deadline. Preparing a schedule and making notes on what need to be done to avoid forgetting things. Assign time for each work prior, rather than figuring out which one to do first at the end.

Finally yes, I would definitely recommend making the students read this book for similar violations as it will give insights on what are citations and how to cite properly. But also at the same time I feel there is more to academic integrity other than plagiarism and cheating. This book helps in learning citations but it is also necessary for students to understand the system rather than the chunks of it, so they could know what is expected of them much more precisely.

Plagiarism is the use of exact words and ideas of other people or another author without giving proper acknowledgement to the owner. It is also defined as the use of another person’s works, ideas, theories, strategies, and interpretation without permission from the author or person. This act of dishonesty is a serious offense in school communities, that could possibly result to expulsion or suspension. It can be diverse in its extent based on its amount. Student commits plagiarism by just replacing the words with synonyms and changing some parts of the original document is a very common act (Klien, 2011).

Since the 1600s, plagiarism is identified as a problem. This unlawful act must be prevented and in line with moral virtues, values, and behave accordingly. Conferring to literature, to scrutinize the understanding and concept of plagiarism is to solve this problem.

There is also known as cyber plagiarism, it is a copy-paste act in the internet. Students are mostly engaged in this kind of act and was reported plagiarizing as they copy-paste information from the internet. Therefore, acts such as; download, editing, and printing an article or book coming from a website and claiming an article as their original writing is morally wrong and can receive consequence (Kokkinaki et al.,2015).

The arise of electronic technology is the ins and outs of plagiarism. It has limitless knowledge that aims to provide the information to those researchers anytime-anywhere. It becomes ever-complicated because of the factors that result in plagiarism; such as students understanding of plagiarism, self-realization, ethics, and personal attitude, internet access, pressure, and learning environment (Smith et al., 2007).

According to Gillespie (2003) Sims published an article about the relationship between unethical business and academic dishonesty practices. It was published in the year 1993, were they found most of senior and college student did a consistent academic dishonesty due to the standards of teachers, professors and the institution. The cavalier ignorance towards academic dishonesty is of concern for most higher education since it creates big impact to the organization that needed to unravel and impart some excessive knowledge concerning the credibility of their alma mater.

Many researchers argue about the uncertainty on what is supposed to do in academic dishonesty among learners (Ashworth et al., 1997). Learners claimed that they cannot consider to be dishonesty or cheating to what the teacher/professors tells them to do. An area of uncertainty might include them to have peer collaboration and eloquent to what is extent the collaboration considered to be inappropriate (Weiss & Bader, 2003). Lathrop & Foss (2003) agreed that there is a fundamental conflict between the teacher/professors to allocate collaboration work to their learners. Williams (2001) also stated that there might be point of crossing line on cheating that may differ by each teacher/professor.

According to McCabe & Trevino (1993, 1997, 2002) plagiarism and cheating is becoming a campus norm due to the lack of honor code and adequate consequences in this is one of the reasons why plagiarism wide spreading in campuses. They also suggest that having academic honor codes can reduce plagiarism and cheating and might be ended this kind of norm. Some students may engage in plagiarism practices particularly in school works, due to the easier access in the internet and more suitable answer they want (Garcia 2009). Students who either intentionally or unintentionally submit unoriginal work as their own, are hindering their ability to extract meaning from the information they read (Abdolmohammadi & Baker, 2007) are limiting their opportunity to develop higher level cognitive learning skills.

Plagiarism has been a problem in higher education institutions all throughout the globe. These practices are common issue that reported by numerous students Roman (2018). However, plagiarism today is now easily detected, there is a software that detects whether an essay is plagiarized and was performed with the Joint Information System Committee at University of Bedfordshire. Its gives benefit to the writes and authors to honor and preserve their works Bull, Collins, Coughlin, and Sharp (2001).

Reyes et al. (Sci Ed. 2015), that several universities and campuses across the Philippines, had plagiarism cases in the same way as University of the Philippines Diliman, the Organization’s largest and reputable university in the state found out to has numerous students plagiarize in the University. However, despite the verifiable cases of plagiarism in the university and its academic organization strict the rule on confidentiality in cases involving research malpractice. The Chancellor have the authority to examine selected final and execute the student case files to obsolete Student Disciplinary Tribunal. Reyes et al. (Sci Ed. 2015) also stated that currently, there are no national guidelines on dealing with plagiarism for academic publishers in the Philippines, or even for the University of the Philippines. Besides, plagiarism in the Philippines is still largely understudied. Existent work generally focuses on plagiarism by students, tackling educational interventions, or plagiarism in relation to legal issues.

Moreover, students or even others should learn how to express their own ideas and make it a challenge for themselves, and doing it with a foreign language makes the situation more difficult because of some reasons, for instance, language vocabulary limitation and the grammar if it is compared to the person’s mother tongue. Many international students borrow the words of native authors through lack of confidence in their own abilities to write correct, clear English. It is big challenge to every person who are not into English (Carroll, 2007).

Smith et al., (2007) said that plagiarism becomes increasingly problematic because of the factors that results to it; such as students understanding of plagiarism, self-realization, ethics and personal attitude, internet access, pressure and learning environment. Plagiarism gets more attention among the academic dishonesty, most of the professors, scholars and researchers (Shenton 2012). It can be described as the greatest challenges that a school or university is facing. Since plagiarism remains as a well-known problem in the academe, University teachers tended to overestimate their frequency (Hard et al., 2006). Students also perceive that plagiarism occurs more often than it does, greater extent than faculty, and generally attribute the high rate to strangers than the people they know (Engler et al., 2008). Rettinger and Kramer (2009) states that one reason that can distort students understanding of the required strategies that they should use to complete assignments is those unidentified group of students, who attended school regularly and submit, plagiarized works.

Reasons for Plagiarism, Dishonest and Its Disadvantage

In the academic aspect plagiarism, dishonesty or cheating is not new but it is a phenomenon issue where mostly students are the host. The student’s way to cheat is via internet access by the usage of modern technology like cellphones, computers, laptops, iPad and etc.

According to Ma et al (2007) the reasons why students/learners commit plagiarism or academic cheating for the reason of peer culture, the offers of the website, pressure for aiming high academic grade and parents’ high expectations. Mcdowell and Brown (2001) added that the higher education’s standard is one of the reasons why students cheat to meet its objectives. Furthermore, the changes of the form of assessments such as projects, performance tasks, assignment and etc., affects the communication of both learner and educator that is why stealing information thru technology is the easiest way to do it. A dilemma that focuses only on maintain and targeting high grades to pass academic standards. In addition, internet is the easiest and simplest way for assignment completion which strongly related to plagiarism.

Eccles et al (2006) also stated that the student’s tendency to plagiarize is due to the lack of English knowledge and language on how to use it properly. Therefore, naturally born in English language has the advantage not to take plagiarism while unnaturally born in English language has the tendency to commit plagiarism. Student who had hard time because of heavy workloads to do may be pressured and do dishonest things. Moreover, lack of information skills of a student is a must concern to avoid cheating (Morey 2011).

Most of the reason to commit such academic dishonesty is the laziness and the poor or lack of understanding of citation rules and does not have time management, also the laziness of paraphrasing the text (Wilkinson, 2009). The internet has been blamed because of increasing the plagiarism practices that is happening these days and it is witnessed by the recent years. Internet also is a major and omnipresent at higher level institutions of learning (Selwyn, 2008).

Smit (2012) the disadvantage of plagiarism could be affecting the future career of a student(s)/person(s) whom only rely on stealing someone’s work. It keeps the laziness inside and always depend on ready-made works.

Academic Consequences

A student(s) caught on plagiarizing will face consequences which failure on academics, suspension and dismissal. The teachers, faculty and school will be the ones to do consequences (Judicial Board Advisor 2020). Shabe (2018) also added that consequences on plagiarism is depend on the institution of what type of rules they will get but in common in specified above failing grades, disciplinary action, suspension and etc. Avoiding plagiarism can save future career essentially students should properly cite sources, get permission to someone else’s work.

Belter et al., (2009) agreed to it and distinguish plagiarism as an intentional and unintentional. From the perspective of unintentional it is where a student who is just starting on learning how to write and do things must be informed and must understand how to avoid plagiarism and the consequences of plagiarism as the purpose of this study to avoid conflict regarding same thoughts and ideas. On the other hand, Intentional plagiarism is purposely presenting someone’s idea or work as its own without giving proper credits to the author. The most common act of intentional plagiarism is cheating in exams, doing an essay, copying someone’s work (Atrak, H., 2018). This will be permanently recorded and have a long-term consequence in the career of a person(s)/student(s) after proven doing plagiarism.

Capes (2011) also stated, to raise awareness about plagiarism in text documents, thesis paper, articles and so on to academic community. But since, some academic organization consider plagiarism not a consequential act, the students’ dishonesty such as cheating, lack of the owners’ acknowledgment, copying without citations and other written document will still on going for they have not experience a total and tangible consequences to their unrighteous act. As well, plagiarism can weaken the ability of the student(s)/learner(s) to attain skills required for higher education that could to be ignorant and harm themselves Conger, Loch 1996).

Plagiarism can bring monetary retribution and penalties for they offend the original writer and penalized to compensate for it. Moreover, Department of Justice (DOJ) conferring that plagiarism is not a crime itself but in sum up to copyright infringement carries a penalty of 3-6 years imprisonment and a fine of ₱50,000.00 – ₱150,000.00 if prosecuted under the law, it is legally based Under the law of Philippines Cybercrime Prevention Act or the Republic Act 10175, (Bailey, 2012).

According to Cole (2007) there still consequences to those graduate students who silently plagiarize where it attacks their personal integrity and lack of professionalism. In this situation their career might fall down and be criticize by other professionals.

Generally, the mentioned consequences can be destructive will greatly affect the violators life. By that students should learn on how to acquire and be independent to seek knowledge regarding English language.

Academic plagiarism is to sign or present as your own something composed by someone else. It is duplicating other people’s work. Plagiarism or literary theft is a fraudulent imitation of a work, ensured by copyright law, and there is a genuine infringement of the writer’s moral rights: both the paternity and the integrity of his creation. There are different ways to commit plagiarism. Among the most repeated practices, the following can be distinguished: integral plagiarism (duplicating, in precisely the same words, without making changes, work, or passage of it and not presenting the authentic source), paraphrasing without assigning the source, research data – quantitative and qualitative – without mentioning the source, mosaic plagiarism (coping excerpts from different sources, forming a mosaic, but changing small sentences or words to disguise the copy), self-plagiarism (it happens when someone borrows their content, which has already been used in previous situations), or copying images, photos, graphics, drawings, and other visual content.

As for me, I believe that plagiarism is bad, primarily from the point of view of ethics. Plagiarism should be unacceptable and avoided at all costs, if you are caught plagiarizing this will question your character and integrity. People will question all aspects of your work academically. Plagiarism is stealing in the simplest form. This has always been ethically wrong.

Ethical people attract other ethical people, forming a network of good around them. Therefore, to create a culture of ethics and integrity in our environment, the first step starts with us: be whole. According to La Boetie, a French philosopher and humanist, only ethical people have friends, evil people have complicities. Moreover, these complicities compete with people and covet their success. With this, it is interesting to think that being ethical is the best and easiest way to win, since by being ethical, instead of envy and pitfalls, people find the support of other individuals who cheer for their success. Academic integrity is a fundamental component of success and growth; it prepares students for personal and professional challenges, as well as providing a plan for future achievement and success.

We should always be careful about integrity and never leave anyone in doubt about how we stand on issues. Integrity, for me, is more than just legal issues. It is values that should guide us all the time. It is about always doing the right thing, not just the cool thing. Trusting your integrity and not disappointing others is the message that everyone in a professional environment should always follow. For this reason, I believe that plagiarism should never be acceptable in an academic environment, as it threatens our integrity and goes against moral and ethical standards.